Unforgettable (16 page)

She shook off that depressing thought as she turned onto Main Street, not surprised to find that almost nothing had changed. The main intersection of town was still a stop sign. The business district extended one block in all directions, then gave way to farms and the occasional grouping of houses. There were a couple of new names on the stores, and the Five and Dime looked like it had turned into a more upscale toy emporium. In ten minutes she knew the whole town again, but recognized no one.

The picnic at the park next to Mill Lake was already underway, but Rett doubled back through town in the opposite direction. Left on South Road, right on Road 167. Third house on the right. The last house of the group, separated from the others by a narrow creek.

She coasted to a halt and stared at the half-dead rosebushes and scraggly geraniums. The same broken outdoor chairs still rusted on what passed for a front lawn. A dinged and dented Grand Prix dripped oil in the driveway.

In a sudden panic she slammed the gearshift into reverse and backed hurriedly out of the dead-end road. So much for thinking she was ready. Nothing about the house had changed. The woman inside would not have changed either.

It was a relief to leave the panic and the sticky air of the car for the cool, deep shade of the Norway red pines surrounding the picnic area. A handmade banner read, “Welcome Woton High Grads!”

She saw Cinny before Cinny saw her. She had expected more pink, and possibly Capri pants or something equally feminine, but Cinny was wearing denim shorts and a tight black Dixie Chicks T-shirt.

When Cinny did see her, she hurried over with a hug and a my-name-is sticker. “I decided I hate pink,” she whispered in Rett’s ear. She slapped the sticker on Rett’s chest. “Not that anyone will have forgotten you. Our class is that way.” She pointed and then hurried off to greet someone Rett recognized as having been one or two years ahead of her.

There were at least twenty families in the group under their class banner, which meant just about a hundred percent turnout. Central grills were sizzling with hot dogs and burgers. Kids were dashing around with grilled corn on the cob on sticks. Her mouth watered — it had been a long time since she’d had right-off-the-stalk sweet corn. Underneath the aroma of barbecues was the ubiquitous tang of bug repellant. Summer in Minnesota. It wasn’t as bad as she had thought it would be.

She abruptly realized she was probably the only person who had come alone. Everyone else had families to sit with. She was going to have to linger hopefully here and there until someone took her in. Gads — it was just like high school all over again.

“Hey, Rett’s here,” someone hollered.

She turned to see someone who had to be Tom Stoddard rushing toward her. Tom had been a member of their singing group, and was part of her small collection of happy memories.

His enthusiastic hug surprised her. “It’s great to see you.”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Tom.”

“Come say hello to Bunny again.”

Bunny was married to Tom. Well, that made sense. So she was Bunny Stoddard now. They’d been even-keeled, serious steadies all through high school. Three teenagers milled about getting soda and defying their mother’s edicts against more Rice Krispie treats.

“I’m glad you made it,” Bunny said. “I told Tom he missed an incredible performance on Friday.”

“She wouldn’t let me come along.” Tom settled onto the picnic table bench and opened the cooler at his feet. “Want a beer?”

“Actually, I’ll take a soda for now. Anything diet.”

“Listen to you, you always were a stick.”

Rett popped open the diet Fresca, a soda she hadn’t had in ages. She prodded her abdomen. “Forty means more here. I drink diet to make room for cheesecake.”

“I hear that,” Bunny said. “So Rett, what have you been doing with yourself all these years? I was hoping you’d be back for one of the earlier reunions or home to see your mom and we could catch up.”

Rett ignored the comment about her mother. “I lived in the Twin Cities for several years, until I got out of U of M. My degree was in music, surprise, surprise. But mostly I sang with bands and in clubs — anyone who would pay me. After I graduated I did what every aspiring artist does. New York.”

Bunny’s eyes were bright with curiosity. “Is that where you got your big break?”

“Not a chance. I didn’t last three months.” She sipped her Fresca, then nibbled on the Chex mix Tom proffered. “The cost-of-living was astronomical, even sharing a shoebox with two other girls. I lived on peanuts and day-old doughnuts and realized pretty quickly that I’d use up every penny I’d saved long before anyone even noticed me. Clubs were glutted with people who had been in theater productions, and they got any and all the singing gigs that ever opened up. I had no agent, no contacts at all. So I left before I got desperate.” She’d seen what some of the young women her age had resorted to in order to survive, and she’d decided she’d go home to her mother before she’d sell herself or drugs.

“Where to? Here, have some potato salad — my favorite recipe.”

The salad was like a slice of the past. Rett had forgotten how tasty basic, ordinary potato salad was. No curry, no fancy mustard sauce. Mayo and celery salt — what could be better? “Detroit. It was much, much cheaper to live there, and bartending jobs in clubs where I hoped one day to sing were actually pretty easy to come by. The music scene in Detroit is still thriving, even jazz, which everyone says is dead. They finally let me sing to shut me up and I worked steadily after that. After a couple of years I was comfortable. Regular singing dates, a steady and not-too-draining bartending job. Good tips, but I think the cigarette smoke probably took ten years off my voice.”

“But you live in L.A. now. I think that’s what Cinny said.” Bunny hooked a runaway Frisbee with her foot and tossed it back to one of her sons.

“When I did get an agent she convinced me it was a better place to be, and she was right. No more bartending. I got a lot of voice-overs, commercial work —”

“Anything I’d know?”

“Probably not — local companies mostly.” She cleared her throat and sang cheerfully, ” ‘Bea is choosy so you don’t have to be!’ “

Bunny laughed. “Oh that’s funny. I never thought about who would be hired to sing just one line.” She swatted a hand coming up from under the table toward the Rice Krispie treats without even looking in that direction. “So you tour all over now? What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever been?”

Rett thought about it for a moment. “Denmark, I think. Old and classic and yet very modern.” If Rett stopped to think about some of the women she’d known in Denmark she would blush. She rushed on. “I was touring with a jazz band that would have made it big if they hadn’t had creative differences.” She grinned. “That’s a euphemism for the fact that everyone finally got on everyone else’s nerves to the point of near-homicide. I was with that band for I think two years, and it ended up coming to nothing. Well, I learned a lot. But now I’m going to be touring with the Henry Connors Orchestra, and Henry goes all over the world. I think Hong Kong may be on next year’s itinerary. I’m very excited.”

“Let me meet you in some exotic city somewhere. I’m dying to get off this continent.”

“Can I come along?” Tom’s plaintive question made Bunny wrinkle her nose fondly.

“I s’pose.”

Someone touched Rett’s shoulder then sat down next to her. “Bet you don’t remember me.” The fair-skinned redhead covered her name badge with her hand.

“That’s not fair,” Rett protested. Her brain clicked and she came up with a name. “Natalie Gifford.”

“Hey, you do remember. I’m flattered.”

“You were one of the ROTC geeks.” Rett grinned to make sure Natalie knew she was teasing.

“That’s me. I just finished my twenty with the Army.” Rett’s gaydar was beeping madly, but she put it down to the abundance of taut muscles framed by Natalie’s khaki tank top. The matching utilitarian shorts had to be Army issue, and she was willing to bet there were boxers under those shorts. “Can I drag you away from Bunny? Come say hi to my folks — they say they remember you vividly.”

Rett let herself be carried off, amazed that Natalie’s parents did indeed remember the songs she had performed in the senior class talent show. From there she chatted with several people she dimly remembered; then Mary, who had been a Wiffenpoof with Rett, was introducing her to her husband and pointing out her kids. A lot of people had kids who were too old to be coerced into attending their parent’s stuffy reunion. One classmate was a grandmother. That information silenced Rett for a full minute.

Johnny Woodstrom stopped long enough to say that some of the old Wiffenpoofs were going to be brushing up some vocals at the far end of the trees for an impromptu concert, if Rett wanted to join them. Wayne Igorson had brought his guitar.

“I’d love to,” Rett answered. “I was hoping we would get together. Those were really great times.”

“I think you’ll be surprised by how much we’ve all kept in practice. Wayne plays with the symphony sometimes. Of course, you’re the only one who makes a living at it.”

“It’s nice work if you can get it. I’ll be there — in an hour?” Johnny confirmed that and headed back to his family. Races and games were getting underway. Rett was not surprised when Natalie won the potato-sack race by a considerable margin. She gravitated back to Natalie’s parents, who were very welcoming. Natalie’s mother appeared to have the inside scoop on just about everyone. As Rett looked around she spotted the men who had once been the boys who’d taunted and teased her. Angel was right — it had always been some of the boys who’d had it in for her.

Rett provided the requisite details about her own past to add to Mrs. Gifford’s storehouse. In return she learned tidbits of small-town gossip. Adam Ericson had done something mysterious and not entirely successful about his receding hairline. Nate and Jenny Hughes had been married to other people before realizing they’d always loved each other. Cinny Keilor had waited a very long time before settling down with Sam Johnson, who had moved into town as a new manager at the Green Giant plant.

Rett looked when Mrs. Gifford pointed out Sam. He appeared to be nice enough. It was strange to watch him, though, and to know so much more about his wife than he might ever understand.

“… won the National Science Award — her family’s along that way — with the next class. I think they could have sat in three of the five class areas, what with her two brothers graduating just ahead of her and all.”

“Who?” Rett now remembered hearing Cinny mention something about the National Science Award, too, but she’d missed it.

“Angelica Martinetta. That’s Doctor Angelica Martinetta. She won it just last year — it was in the announcement. I’ve never been much of one for science talks, but I think I’ll go to that thing Cinny arranged. Natalie showed it to me in the announcement materials. All the way into St. Cloud to the university extension there, but it is about women’s types of cancers. At my age I should take an interest.”

Angel’s name had been in the announcement materials? Her identity had been sitting in Rett’s mailbox and the bottom of her suitcase for at least three weeks? She’d only looked long enough to find the name of the motel”, fill out the obligatory questionnaire about what she’d done since high school and write a check for the various events.

Thank you, Universe, thank you so bloody fucking much.

Rett could now see Angel in the midst of a large and boisterous family group. She remembered that Angel had had at least two older brothers who graduated in the two years ahead of them, and a younger sister who went to high school the year after they left. The Martinettas were having quite a family reunion, then.

I’m a moron.

“She put in her bio that she spends all day staring into microscopes, but there’s plenty more than that to it, doncha think?”

It was hard to associate the fiery Angel with a career that required such patience, but then again, she had spoken of her work with a great deal of passion. “I would think,” she echoed lamely.

Angel caught her staring. All the animation left her face and Rett found herself mouthing, “I’m sorry.” She was sorry about Cinny, sorry about the past. She wanted to move on.

Angel pressed her lips together, then she was distracted by a family member. She did not look in Rett’s direction for the entire time Rett kept glancing her way.

The relentless game organizers were beating the crowd for participants in a saucer-stacking contest, and Rett knew it wouldn’t be long until they found her with no other demands as an excuse. She ducked into the trees to walk down to the lake.

Pines shaded the grassy shore and reflected sunlight dazzled Rett’s eyes. She kicked off her sandals and carried them as she waded into the cool water.

The murky sand caressed her feet. She let her toes sink in and swatted her first mosquito. Summer — it had been a long, long time since she’d felt summer like this. The buzz of insects, the slight headache from the brilliant sunshine, the certainty that she’d forgotten to put sunscreen on one earlobe — summer. She closed her eyes and her mind opened a memory of a day she had never willingly recalled before.

She had to be nine. They’d spread a picnic on a shore very much like this one — she wasn’t sure which lake. It was her first picnic. Bruce had insisted. He’d been living with her mother for a couple of months and was the nicest man Rett had ever met.

“Sing something for us,” he’d said.

Rett had been standing in the water, just as she was now, and she’d opened her arms to the sun and sung “Good Morning, Starshine” from the musical Hair. She’d heard a woman sing it on the Mike Douglas Show and she’d been practicing it on her own.

It was the kind of day when the expanse of lake was the perfect orchestra pit and Canada only the first balcony. When she finished she’d turned, flushed with success, to face Bruce and her mother.

Bruce applauded enthusiastically. “That was wonder —”

“Christ, Rett, you’d wake the dead,” her mother snapped. “Everyone is staring. You’re getting all wet. Don’t think you can sit down on this blanket until you’re dry.”